sed for biting or
mastication, but merely to keep in the food which has entered its mouth.
This food is chiefly the _Squid_ or _Sepia octopus_, known also by the
name of the cuttle-fish. In the South-Seas they are of enormous size,
and, with their long feelers or arms growing out of their heads, are
sufficiently strong to hold a man under the water and to kill him.

The sperm whale, however, swallows a variety of other fish. It catches
them, not by swimming after them, but by opening wide its mouth and
letting its prey swim into it! We will suppose ourselves looking down
that vast mouth, as the lower jaw hangs perpendicularly to the belly;
incapable it seems of moving. The interior of the throat is very
large--capable of swallowing a man; the tongue is very small and
delicate, and of a pure white colour; so are the teeth, which glisten
brilliantly; and so is the whole interior. Fish are particularly
attracted by their white appearance. They take it, perhaps, to be some
marble hall erected for their accommodation; so in they swim, big and
little squid equally beguiled! How the whale's mouth must water when he
feels a fine huge juicy octopus playing about his tongue! Up goes the
lower jaw like a trap-door, and cephalapods, small and large, find their
bright marble palace turned into a dark, black prison, from which there
is no return; for, giving a turn with his tongue, he gulps them all down
with a smack which must make old Ocean resound!

In another respect, the sperm is very different from the Greenland
whale. It seems to know the power of its jaws, and will sometimes turn
on its pursuers and attack them, though generally a timid animal, and
disposed to seek safety by flight. The general opinion is, that sperm
whales often fight with each other, as we have caught them with their
lower jaws twisted in a variety of directions, and otherwise injured.
The sperm whale's eyes are very small, with movable eyelids, and are
placed directly above the angle of the mouth, or a third part of its
whole length distant from the snout. It is very quick-sighted, as it is
also quick of hearing. Its ears--small round holes, which will not
admit a little finger--are placed directly behind the eyes. The fins,
which, as I have said, might be called paws, are close to the angle of
the mouth. I have known a female whale support her young on them; and
they are used to balance the body, to steer by, and, when hard pressed,
to sink